


Cruces

by explodeabeau



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, introspective but soriku if you squint tbh, riku zine 2019, way to dawn zine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 15:41:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20603240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/explodeabeau/pseuds/explodeabeau
Summary: Not everything is as it’s meant to be, at least not how they’d all thought it should be; the beauty of fairy tales is that they simplify things, make them glorious and dreamy and all-encompassing. Black and white. Dark and light.





	Cruces

**Author's Note:**

> Published in the Way to Dawn Riku fanzine, 2019! Really loved getting to be a part of this project, so I hope you enjoy this piece. It was a joy to write. (:

** _I._ **

Riku thinks he understands what heroes look like when he meets Terra; he doesn’t understand the nuances yet, of_ course _ he doesn’t. He’s only five years old, after all. But he understands, a bit, at least afterwards. Enough to see that knights in shining armor may be a little younger than predicted, a little more worn than perhaps one might expect. They’re allowed friends, and the darkness is sometimes ahead rather than chasing close behind.

He sees the crease between Terra’s brows, and while he does not know what has put it there, he realizes in that moment that perhaps anyone can be a hero, and perhaps sometimes they are not ready to be, but they _ must. _

Destiny calls. And when it comes down to it, perhaps that was why it was the islands where Terra found him, because the next stage of a saga often starts in the nicest places one can imagine. The ones that provide rest.

The ones that least deserve it.

But Riku is five years old, and he doesn’t know that yet. All he knows is that the man (boy, really, but how is he to see it) before him is tall, and foreign to him, and he looks sadder than anyone else he’s ever seen. And he speaks to him like an adult, like he matters.

“Smart kid,” Terra says, and every bit of his world shatters at that affirmation and pieces back together much _ smaller, _ somehow, because now Riku knows that there is _ more. _ There are other lands beyond the sea around them; there is so much to discover. 

Destiny’s children were always granted blue eyes. They spent so very long staring at the sky that it gifted them a little piece of itself to keep. It does what it can. Their eyes are the sort of blue that catch you, hold you, show every bit of emotion inside them. Riku’s are, now more than ever, bright with a starving curiosity.

(Perhaps when Terra sees them, he thinks_ it’ll kill you one day. _)

He decides then and there that he’ll find the outside, all of it, and Terra looks through him like he sees something else inside, but he doesn’t mind that really. Adults are weird that way.

_ To protect the things that matter. _It’s a conviction that’s always lived inside of him, because he is a child, and all children love with a desperately fierce love in their own way. But to have it seen, and recognized, and —

“No ocean will contain you then. No more borders around, or below, or above,” Terra promises, and Riku’s heart aches with a fierce joy.

He takes it. Of course he does. How could he not?

Later, Riku thinks that he really should have known from the fact that the Keyblade was light even in his tiny hand—the true burden would lie heavy in his heart.

** _II._ **

Riku understands what heroes are. It’s interesting how minds can bear particular scars, especially young ones, as though they were simply waiting to be marked. His is not scarred so much as branded, burning, burning with a feverish need to see. To know. To _ understand. _

Sora and Kairi look at him, and in their eyes he sees love and confusion, and that’s alright. It’s a secret, the one part of him they can never know.

He walks across the shores with the roaring confidence of something ancient and old and silver, someone who knows that their presence is as much a claim as anything. The islands are his, and he will conquer the rest, make them all his with the restless wanderlust that stirs inside him. He knows that now.

He doesn’t like being patient very much, but he can wait for now.

The problem is that for Riku, the world is black and white, now. He looks at Sora, and he sees Terra—in his friend is the shape of a hero, lurking, all innocent eyes that are far too open and messy brown locks and a heart utterly incapable of resentment. 

Riku is not so full of light. He looks at Sora, and he sees the shape of a hero.

Somewhere deep inside, a tiny spark of bitterness flares, muted by the affection and protectiveness he harbors just as well. Riku forgets that he should see only the blue in Sora’s eyes, and when he looks into them he sees only blinding brilliance. The only darkness he can find is in himself, a compressed and concentrated envy he cannot shake.

He cannot match it, so he plays along, becomes a thing of secrets and good-bad-nothing, because the colors hurt to understand. He is still terribly, terribly young. How is he to know?

Riku believes in heroes, and he begins to believe with a gut-wrenching certainty that he will never be one, because he knows who should be. 

It only hurts worse when he is proven right. 

** _III._ **

It’s a tale as old as time. Riku thinks he understands; of course he doesn’t, not really, but that’s fine. They’re all children, after all. The stories wind around their limbs, drag behind them gathering expectations with every step.

Once you’ve decided you have a destiny, nothing can stop it from finding you.

Riku knows that Sora will be the hero of their story, but he can’t help that he’s jealous.

He doesn’t understand the consequences, but he wants to be a part of their story, and if Sora is the hero, then he will become what he thinks he has the greatest potential to be.

A villain.

He turns away from Sora and his confused cries, embraces all of the resentment inside of him because it’s the clearest choice. His friends aren’t his problem, not now. He has to achieve what has been set out for him to do, the last available part to play.

He opens the door and steps into shadow that might as well be the abyss, hand outstretched as he reaches for the outside world, and he isn’t afraid.

** _IV._ **

More than anything, Riku knows he isn’t a hero. 

Naminé has spent so very long sketching them. On paper, in her hopes, until they are all engraved on her heart. How much of them now is simply what she wished them into being? 

He thinks he is still himself, because he is no ideal understanding of who he is. She defines them according to what she can see, what she can dream, breaking them apart little by little to fit the mold she needs them to become to draw out her story. He has no archetype to fit into.

There may be darkness inside of him, but it no longer defines him. 

Not everything is as it’s meant to be, at least not how they’d all thought it should be; the beauty of fairy tales is that they simplify thing, make them glorious and dreamy and all-encompassing. Black and white. Dark and light.

He breathes in, once, twice. _ I am strong. I am strong. I am strong. _

“It’s the way to dawn.”

_ I am enough. _

Light comes after the darkness. The darkness follows light, and they mingle, merge. That was how it should be. How it was, deep inside him. And he would keep going. They all would, because it was the only thing to be done. He would emerge from the shadow that had swallowed him.

Riku thinks DiZ’s gaze sharpens, just a bit, but really, how is he to know?

It hardly matters, so he doesn’t ask. He’s got work to do.

** _V._ **

Riku’s getting a little tired of self-sacrifice, but what was a guy to do, really? 

His heart aches with every new set of familiar blue eyes, and with these, it very nearly shatters._ How? _It’s completely impossible, to him. It doesn’t make sense. Sora, Sora could _ never _be consumed by the darkness.

Sora has always been the shape of a hero.

And Riku had always thought, always _known_ as a child with a horrible, absolute conviction, that he could never be a hero, because Sora was kind. He was good. He was unbearably full of light, incapable of the same jealousies and failings that Riku was. 

Kairi is the same way, sweet and unerringly patient, clever in a way the boys have never been. She is above Riku in a way he can never match, and he isn’t entirely sure he wants to.

It just doesn’t make _ sense. _

When he strikes Xion down, it is with a burning sense of false righteousness, rage at whatever trick has been used to create her. She is nothing but a pale imitation, he can see that much right away—she is practically an infant, unsure of herself, unsure of what she thinks she might know.

And yet those eyes are familiar, with a determination he knows awfully well.

(After all, it lives inside him, too.)

When he faces Roxas, it hurts so very much more than he thought it could. Xion had been angry, tearful, but ultimately still helpless then, a true child trying to find her place.

His fingers close around the Keyblade hurled at him, and he knows with a soft grief that the other girl is gone, at least for now.

“Who are you?” It’s a demand, not a question, and Riku thinks that perhaps out of all of them this one has the right to know most in this moment, but he can’t. It isn’t time. None of them are truly ready.

_ Everything will be the way it was, _ the Nobody cries out, _ the three of us can be together again _—and Riku feels his mouth crack into a jagged smile too broken to be honest. Oh, no, no, no, he thinks; that can never be. You’re real, even if everyone says you aren’t, but you can never claim yourself.

He is selfish, he knows that, but he isn’t ashamed. In this, the shadow stems from love.

_ Why don’t you quit _ —and oh, he sees now without having to open his eyes at all. He understands, a terrible certainty that he couldn’t doubt if he tried, and when he calls out _ Sora answers _ and oh, oh, _ oh. _

So much makes sense now. He finally understands.

Roxas is a raging lion, voice cracking with pain and shoulders heavy with all the weight on his shoulders; he is fury, and resentment, and_ why this, why me, why us, _ and Riku looks at him and thinks _ ah. _

He sees the flaws in Sora now, even through the blindfold, but he loves his friend all the more for it because now he knows that the shape of a hero is anyone. Any single person can rise; anyone can transcend all expectations set forth for them. Anyone can forge a new path.

Everyone’s a hero, really.

He thinks Roxas might be too, but for the sake of Xion, for Sora and Kairi and everyone else, he lets the shadow in him swell and stretch him out, push him into the shape of a maybe-villain for just a while longer, maybe forever, and he steps forward.

_ I conquer. I conquer. I conquer. _

He is strong enough to make their happy ending.

** _VI._ **

It’s a stained-glass story, at the end of it. Riku doesn’t think it’s truly over, but that’s fine; stories never end, not really. Even when the players are long gone and forgotten, they still breathe in legends, echoes of blades raised in defiance and the warmth of home that forged them.

He likes to think their stories aren’t over yet, either, but it’s still awfully nice to take a break.

The ocean and the sky have no hold over him. He is strong. 

His friends are safe, and if his heart is not completely devoid of darkness, then it is at the very least _ at peace, _ and he trusts himself enough to follow it now. 

“Hey,” he says, and his fingers close around Sora’s forearm with an affectionate squeeze. “Race you.”


End file.
